For a family's weekend retreat on eastern
Long Island, designer Robert Stilin offers an elegant twist on the quintessential pleasures of life by the shore

Family Room

Family Room

Some years ago,a billionaire quietly bought a large parcel of land in Sagaponack, New York, and erected a $200 million, 29- bedroom Italianate compound surrounded by formal gardens. So it’s easy to understand why residents of the tiny hamlet, which lies smack in the middle of the Hamptons, were wary when the CEO of a major lifestyle brand and his photographer wife bought one of the last intact farmhouses there. Many in town worried that the couple—whose primary home is a sprawling Westchester County estate—would tear down the farmhouse and put up a monstrosity.

Their concern was unnecessary. Instead of leveling the gracious 19th-century structure, the couple preserved as much of it as they could, creating a unique paean to the sort of casual, beachy elegance that used to define Sagaponack.

In the family room of a Sagaponack, New York, home designed by Robert Stilin, a Tom Dixon light fixture hangs above a ­cocktail table by HB Home; the cushions of the vintage René Gabriel armchairs are upholstered in a Stroheim stripe. The bookcase is vintage, the walls are painted in Benjamin Moore’s Seapearl, and the paneled ceiling is original.

“The last thing that we wanted was a McMansion,” says the photographer. Instead of being surrounded by the massive privet hedge typical of Hamptons landscaping, their two-and-a-half-acre plot is open to the neighboring houses and fields. (The Atlantic Ocean, with its radiant sunsets, is a short walk away.) The house is airy, light, and modern, with original wide-plank floors and moldings. “The floorboards creak,” says Robert Stilin, a designer based in New York City and East Hampton, to whom the couple turned for help with the renovation. “It’s fantastic.”

A custom-made sofa upholstered in an Elizabeth Dow linen, a cocktail table from HB Home, and 1940s sconces in the family room; the Borge Mogensen–style wing chair is upholstered in a linen by Calvin Fabrics, a vintage bar cart serves as a side table, and the rug is by Merida Meridian.